A World Cup of Hopes, Dreams (and Money Grabbing)

A summer shout to subscribers

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The most touching image of the 2026 World Cup so far was of Swedish fans walking in their bright yellow team shirts to their game against Tunisia in Monterrey and passing the mother of a disappeared son protesting. Various Swedish fans, men and women, young and old, stopped and hugged her.

I’ve interviewed many of the mothers and fathers of the more than 100,000 missing in Mexico (many who were dragged away by cartel gunmen) and you feel them carry a devastating pain. While nothing can repair the hurt of losing a child, an embrace at least shows humanity. Several Mexican commentators pointed out it was a sympathy that Mexican officials have failed to show.

The moment exemplified what the international unity of the Cup is meant to be about amid a tournament that also shows some of the most ruthless money grabbing. The football governing body FIFA (supposedly an NGO) has come under widespread criticism for excessive ticket prices, with “dynamic pricing” plus FIFA cuts on the resell market seeing seats at the final top $30,000. (This piece examines how while dynamic pricing is good in some settings it’s bad when there is a monopoly on a heritage event). FIFA also gets a cut from the Fan Fests, like the vast one in Mexico City’s Zocalo plaza, where there is a monopoly on snack sales. And major changes to the tournament, expanding it to 104 games in three countries (Mexico, the USA and Canada this year) and having games with four quarters with ad breaks, are all about the dinero.

Overall, FIFA is looking at making a cheeky $13 billion from the Cup while the host countries foot the bill for infrastructure. No wonder fans at the opening ceremony in Mexico’s Azteca Stadium (which FIFA calls the Mexico City Stadium for branding reasons) booed FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

Still, I’m enjoying the tournament. Here in Mexico City, people went crazy for Mexico’s opening win against South Africa and bars, restaurants and good ol’ street stalls are packed with people watching games. Mexicans are making a big effort for all the World Cup visitors to feel welcome (people keep asking me if I am here for the Cup, and I say “sure.”) Scenes of Mexico and South Korea fans jumping up and down together to Gangnam Style can’t help put a smile on your face. As George Orwell wrote of The Proles in 1984: “Football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.” But sod it, people need a fun break from all the craziness of the world in 2026.

For any new readers, this installment is from the quarterly “shouts to subscribers,” with informal chat, news and some tin rattling. CrashOut is close to hitting 14,000 subscribers overall, so if any read but aren’t on the list then please whack those keys for free and push us over the line. Meanwhile, it’s the hardcore select who are the paid subscribers that make it happen; if you are loving the newsletter and thinking about coming on board then take that plunge and be the best informed in the room as big things are coming in the U.S.-Mexico drug and cartel situation.

This last quarter was filled with some major developments including the deaths of two CIA agents in Mexico (which is only the tip of the iceberg of covert ops here) and the U.S. indictment of Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya and nine other former and active officials (and there are more of these cases to come). We also published about the thankful decline in U.S. overdose deaths, an exclusive with Juan Alberto Cedillo on the FBI files on the murder Tec de Monterrey founder Eugenio Garza Sada, and we welcomed on board Stephen Woodman with this great piece on crime in the cultural capital of Guadalajara. If you want to know how to search and find stories in the CrashOut archive back to 2022, then here is how to do it.

Subscriber Work

Jacob Shapiro runs a great podcast that “explores global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture through his wide-ranging discussions with analysts from across the world.” He invited me on the show and I really enjoyed the chat. You can listen to it here or search for The Jacob Shapiro Podcast.

Carmen Amato has a new book out in her Detective Emilia Cruz series set in Acapulco. The ebook of Dragon Cartel #10 rolled out first on all platforms with paperback on 30 June. You can find more here.

Wigan plotted this highly useful graph on drug seizures in the United States.

https://theusaindata.pythonanywhere.com/drug_seizures

As Wigan says, “It's interesting that seizure trends of most major classes of illegal drugs show a similar trend of decreasing over the past 3 years.”

Journalist Marcela Turati and her team at Quinto Elemento Lab did an incredible piece of long form journalism (in Spanish) about slaves of the cartel in the Sierra Tarahumara, which you can read here.

Thanks to everyone that I learned from in the comments section this quarter as always and I really enjoy the chats (except in the few occasions people throw insults - chill my brothers!). Special shouts to Gregorio (our Hunter S. Thomson), Bobby X, Paul Grill, Paul Soto, Tom Johnston (and his great interventions), Kevin Spence (hope the game went well), Joe Schmoo, Diego MF, Mags Magee, David Cashion, K Sheffield, Mike Chavarria, Wigan, Andrew Paxman, Francisco Arcaute, JB Fuller, Carmen Amato, Keoki Skinner, The Gang World, Stevie Abbott, Dave Wertz, Christopher and family in Upstate SC, Daniel Helkenn, James Shirley, DC Reade, Aurelie Juliette, Matt, Steven, Néstor Jacobo, JamieR, LeeHamMX, Mar a Man, Totally Fried (I am too), and not to forget Butter.

Mencho Sticker and Animal Mascots

I discovered that some school kids in Mexico City were calling this New Zealand player Ryan Thomas, “El Mencho,” after the (reportedly) fallen drug lord. It’s sad that that is what kids’ references are but you can see the similarity. (Mexican media picked up on the story here).

On the day the World Cup kicked off, I did some live TV interviews from a community Fan Fest, which was a lot of fun, and met these two Mexican fans named Bruno and Luca.

Cute as they are, however, they don’t compete for publicity with Mexico’s favorite mascot, Merlin the duck, who has rocketed to superstar status in Mexico.

Enjoy the summer months my friends, and if you like football, good luck with your team, cheering along with the tribe, and “filling up the horizon of the mind” - I am sure 2026 has some serious business waiting for us when this is over.

Copyright Ioan Grillo and CrashOut Media 2026